


In a World of Steel-Eyed Death

by A_Diamond



Series: SPN Kink Bingo 2017 [3]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fusion, Captain America Dean, Captain America fusion, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Past Abuse, Sappy, Winter Soldier Castiel, bed sharing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-19
Updated: 2017-08-19
Packaged: 2018-12-17 04:58:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,234
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11844414
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/A_Diamond/pseuds/A_Diamond
Summary: Cas has been back for a week when he crawls his way into Dean’s bed for the first time since he was drafted.





	In a World of Steel-Eyed Death

**Author's Note:**

> SPN Kink Bingo square: Bed Sharing. Masterpost [here](http://alxdiamond.tumblr.com/kink).
> 
> Title from [Shelter From the Storm](https://vimeo.com/149992621) by Bob Dylan.

Cas has been back for a week when he crawls his way into Dean’s bed for the first time since he was drafted. That’s only been about five years that Dean was actually awake for, but it feels like the full seven decades that passed with Dean in the Arctic ice and Cas... on ice. Sometimes. When he was lucky.

That kind of ‘lucky’ wasn’t much luck, but it was better than the things Heaven did to Cas, the things they made him do, when he wasn’t in cryo. Dean doesn’t know the half of it, he’s sure. Cas doesn’t talk about it much. But what he does know, between the files on Cas that Charlie dug up when she hacked Heaven’s archives and Theo’s sickening boasts when he was outed and arrested as a Heaven double agent, is enough to keep him awake at night going over all the things he could’ve done differently.

That’s why he’s not asleep when Cas’s body blocks out the faint light in the doorway; it’s also why he stays still, waiting for Cas to move at his own pace, even though he wants nothing more than to reach out to him. But that’s a selfish wish, not what Cas needs. So he doesn’t move, barely even breathes, until Cas asks, “Are you cold?”

Cas’s voice was always low, but it’s rougher these days. Doesn’t get used much, sounds like three packs and a shot of whiskey when it does—or a shot of Garth’s godawful tobacco tin moonshine, which left you feeling about two hairs away from death and like someone had shoved an Mk 2 down your throat and pulled the pin.

The voice may be different from the nights when Cas would check in on him, worried what the cold would do to Dean’s asthmatic pre-serum lungs, but the question isn’t. He’d hover over Dean’s bed, looking down at him in concern, and ask it all throughout the winter, quiet enough not to wake Sammy in the other corner of the room.

They don’t have to worry about Sam now—he’s got his own place, adjusted to the future a hell of a lot better than Dean did. It’s nothing like the science fiction he loved as a kid, but Sam’s always been a nerd and too smart for his own good. It works for him in the twenty-first century. Jealous as he is, Dean’s also glad; Sam flourishing like he never could when they were poor, starving orphans is the only thing that keeps him slogging through it, sometimes. Especially in the first couple years, before he knew Cas was still alive.

Back in the day, Cas would ask and Dean would say, “Yeah, Cas, I’m a little chilly,” even if sometimes he wasn’t. Because it meant Cas would slip under the thin, patched-up quilt and curl around his back, hand pressed to Dean’s chest to make sure he kept breathing through the night.

He always felt a bit guilty for taking advantage, but he thought it was the only way he could get that closeness from Cas, who he’s been in love with for pretty much as long as he can remember. Lately he’s starting to get the idea that maybe Cas wanted something more, too, back then; but it wasn’t a time when a man could talk about that sort of thing, even with his best guy. And everything Cas has been through since then... He’s not expecting anything along those lines anytime soon, if ever.

That’s fine. It’d be awesome, sure, but he’s already got more than he ever had any right to hope for, just having Cas in his life again. He’ll give Cas whatever he needs.

And right now, Cas needs this. Dean’s pretty sure he’s not actually worried about Dean’s lungs; they’ve been better than fine since the serum, and Dean doesn’t have trouble with the cold anymore. But Cas does. Freezing most of the way to death in the snowy mountains after he fell during their disastrous final mission together probably would’ve done that on its own, but the years of being forced into cryogenic deep freeze and then dragged out to shiver through the thaw left him hating cold more than Dean ever did.

“Yeah, Cas,” Dean says softly. He’s not cold, and he hopes someday Cas’ll be able to ask for himself, but it’s still not really a lie when he adds, “I’m a little chilly.”

It’s not until Cas nods and takes another step inside that Dean risks moving, lifting the blanket in front of him in invitation. Cas pauses, his steely blank face especially unreadable in the low light, but then he climbs under Dean’s arm and slowly, hesitantly, curls his back into Dean’s chest. Dean holds him silently, one arm over Cas’s side and his hand on Cas’s heart. Not too tight, just enough to offer him warmth and comfort but still let him escape if he needs to. Despite being a reversal of how they used to do it, it feels right. This time Cas is the one who needs to feel sheltered and watched over, even if he can’t say it yet.

Dean has to suppress a shiver when Cas eases a little closer and his metal arm brushes the bare skin of Dean’s stomach. The mechanical limb almost always runs cold, thanks to the cooling system that stops it overheating under heavy use. When Cas had been using it to beat the crap outta Dean at their reunion, before he remembered who he was and who Dean was, the arm had felt as warm as Cas’s skin; now, without any stress to compensate for, it’s like ice. But he doesn’t let himself react, because Cas is skittish enough that he might take it as a reason to flee.

For Cas’s sake, he’d withstand a lot worse. Still, he hates the thought of Cas carrying that around with him, the constant drain on his body heat. Maybe someday Cas will trust someone to work on it for him and they can get the temperature regulation a little more under control. For now, Dean does what he can: his metabolism makes him a furnace, and he gladly shares the pocket of heat that he creates beneath the covers.

So, so cautiously, Cas’s spine relaxes against Dean. It takes even longer for his breathing to even out, but eventually it does; faster than his usual calm sniper’s breaths, and shallower, too. Peaceful in sleep.

Dean almost never gets to see Cas sleep. He barely does, and even then he wakes instantly, on edge, at the slightest movement or sound. Though he looks a little less hunted with each passing day when no one hurts him or expects him to hurt anyone else, the dark circles never leave his eyes. It’ll be a long time, Dean suspects, before Cas really lets himself believe he’s found a safe place to call home.

It’s not guilt or nightmares keeping Dean awake anymore. He’s keeping watch—not for an attack, though he’d be ready in an instant in that unlikely event because Cas is trusting him to be. He stays up through the dark hours until rosy dawn creeps through his window to the curtains because Cas spends the whole night sleeping in his arms and Dean’s not going to miss a single moment of it.


End file.
